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Smith (surname)
Smith is the most common family name (surname) in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States,Citation: US Census Bureau, 1995. representing more than 1 out of every 100 persons in each of these countries. It is particularly prevalent among those of English descent,Citation: Brooke, 2006. the name being mainly English itself, but has often been taken by non-English natives or immigrants to the above countries in order to blend into the majority culture more easily. It is also a common surname among African Americans, which can be attributed to English slave owners giving the name to black slaves during the Slave Trade. At least 3 million people in the United States share the surname Smith, and somewhat more than ½ million share it in the United Kingdom.Citation: Smith surname at YourNotMe. At the turn of the 20th century, the surname was sufficiently prevalent in England to have prompted the statement: "Common to every village in England, north, south, east and west";Citation: Bardsley, 1901. and sufficiently common on the (European) continent (in various forms) to be "...common in most countries of Europe."Citation: Anderson, 1863. Derivation The name originally derives from smitan, the Anglo-Saxon term meaning to smite or strike (as in early 17th century Biblical English: the verb "to smite" = to hit). This term led to the name of the occupation, smith or blacksmith, because such persons must continuously strike metal with a hammer in order to shape it. Metallurgy required the development of specialist skills, and was practiced throughout the world from the Bronze Age. The use of Smith as an occupational surname dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, when inherited surnames were still unknown: Ecceard Smith of County Durham was recorded in 975.Citation: Simpson, 2007. may also have derived from the Celtic word "smiterin" which meant "blown to bits". This explains the common expression "blown to smithereens". Although the name is derived from a common occupation, many later Smiths had no connection to that occupation, but adopted or were given the surname precisely because of its commonness. For example: * Following the failed Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland, which began around 1715, many Scots adopted the last name Smith to disguise their connection with rebellious clans. To this day, it is not uncommon for persons in English-speaking countries to adopt the surname Smith in order to maintain a secret identity, when they wish to avoid being found by someone; see also John Smith. * During the colonisation of North America, some Native Americans took the name for use in dealing with colonists. * During the period of slavery in the United States, many slaves were known by the surname of their masters, or adopted those surnames upon their emancipation. * It is thought that many early Jewish settlers in the United Kingdom and colonies took the name Smith so as not to stand out when settling in to their new culture. A popular misconception holds that at the beginning of the 20th century, when many new immigrants were entering the U.S., civil servants at Ellis Island responsible for cataloguing the entry of such persons sometimes arbitrarily assigned new surnames if the immigrants' original surname was particularly lengthy, or difficult for the processor to spell or pronounce. While such claims are likely vastly exaggerated,USCIS Home Page many immigrants did choose to begin their American lives with more "American" names, particularly with Anglicised versions of their birth names; the common and equivalent German surname " " was often Anglicised to "Smith". Variations Variations of the surname, Smith, also remain very common. These include different spellings of the English term, and versions from other countries and cultures. English variations Some English variations took place by dint of transient writing conventions, such such as , and Citation: Geoghegan 2006.Citation: Lower, 1860., or as a deliberate choice, such as . Other variants such as , , and may have arisen independently or as offshoots from the 'Smith' root. Names such as and may in some cases be variants of 'Smith' but in others independent surnames based on a meaning of 'light and active' attributed to smyther. Additional derivatives include , and (see below). Other variations focus on particular branches within the profession, particularly those based on the materials worked with — , from those who worked predominantly with iron, , from those who worked with tin (and the more obvious ), , from those who worked with copper (and the more obvious ), , — and those based on the goods produced, such as , (referring to nails), or (referring to horseshoes). The patronymic practice of attaching "son" to the end of a name to indicate that the bearer is the child of the original holder has also led to the occurrences of the surnames and . Another variation, , might derive from persons descended from an estate originally named for a Smith – although another source for this name is from natives of an area known for its "smooth field". In the British Armed Forces personnel with the Smith surname are affectionately called "Smudge" by their comrades. Variations from other countries and cultures * , , , , (German) * Smeets or Lefèbvre/FèbvreLEFEBVRE - Name Meaning & Origin at About.com (French) * Schmieder (Yiddish) * De Smid, De Smedt, Desmedt, De Smet, Smeets, Smets (Southern Dutch) * , Smid, Smidt, Smed, De Smet (Northern Dutch) * Smed (Swedish) * Smid, Šmíd (Czech or Slovak) * Smitas (Lithuanian) * Szmidt (Polish) * Шмидт (Shmidt) (Russian) "Smith" in other languages Other languages with different words for the occupation of smith also produced surnames based on that derivation. Romance languages Words derived from the Latin term for smith, (also the root of the word "fabricate") such as the Italian farrier, are the root of last names common in several parts of Europe. * Italian: Fabbri, Fabris, , * French: , , , , , , or * Spanish: , * Portuguese: * Catalan: Celtic languages In Ireland and Scotland, the word for smith, gobha, is found in the surname /'' . This surname is an Anglicised form of ''Mac Gobhann (Scottish Gaelic), Mac Gabhann (Irish), meaning "son of the smith".http://www.ancestry.com/facts/mcgowan-family-history.ashx In England the surname , which is common in East Anglia, is derived from the Breton and Cornish goff a cognate of the Gaelic gobha. This particular surname was brought to England by Bretons, following the Norman Conquest of England.http://www.ancestry.com/facts/Goff-family-history.ashx Slavic and nearby languages The Slavic languages and the Romanian and Hungarian they influenced contain a family of surnames that similarly derive from a common root referring to the metalworking occupation. * Russian: Kovalev (Ковалев) * Bulgarian: (Ковачев) * Czech: * Polish: and its place name derivative , and patronymics Kowalik and Kowalczyk * Languages of the former Yugoslavia: and its patronymics , and * East Slavic: , , , , * Romanian: * Hungarian: or . Other languages * Arabic: * Estonian: Sepp * Finnish: Seppä, Seppälä * Greek: Σιδεράς, translated most often as Sideras, and less commonly as Sedaris or Sideris * Latvian: Kalejs * Lingala: Motuli * Punjabi: * Syriac: Hadodo, Hadad Comparative note Although Smith is the most common surname in the English-speaking world, it is held by fewer than five-million people worldwide. It is, therefore, dwarfed by the most common surname - - which is held by over one hundred and eight million people. Indeed, each of the twenty most common last names in China represents more people than all of the world's Smiths. Smith was the most common surname in Canada until 2006 - when it was overtaken in that country by Li.Citation: CBC News, 2007. Notable people sharing the surname "Smith" See also *The /variants/ subpage tabulating people of various spellings with columns for other facts * Smith and Jones * (son of Smith) Notes References * All Info About Genealogy - Smith * * The section heading referenced here reads "Smith, Smyth, Smythe", suggesting these to be the most common variants at the time (1901). * * * Cottle, Basil. Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. * Dorward, David. Scottish Surnames. Collins Celtic (Pocket edition), 1998. * * * * The URL here is to a reprint on the Irish Ancestors website. Tables of contents for back issues of Irish Roots Magazine are found at http://www.irishroots.ie/Back%20Issues%20List.htm and there are two listings for the title here, one in 'Issue No. 26 (1998 Second Quarter)', the other in 'Issue No. 48 (2003 Fourth Quarter)'. It is not clear whether the latter is a simple reprint of the former or an update. The reprinted article notes 'From Irish Roots, (No. 28)'. * * Smith, Elsdon C. American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997. * * US Census Bureau (9 May 1995). s:1990 Census Name Files dist.all.last (1-100). Retrieved on 25 February, 2008. External links * Smith SurnameDNA Project *[http://www.archive.org/details/originhistoryofn00lcamer Origin and history of the name of Smith, with biographies of all the most noted persons of that name], Chicago, Ill., American Publishers' Association, 1902. via Internet Archive